The Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement Nearly 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans in Southern states still inhabited a starkly unequal world of disenfranchisement, segregation and various forms of oppression, including race-inspired violence. “Jim Crow” laws at the local and state levels barred them from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the “separate but equal” doctrine that formed the basis for state-sanctioned discrimination, drawing national and international attention to African Americans’ plight. In the turbulent decade and a half that followed, civil rights activists used nonviolent protest and civil disobedience to bring about change, and the federal government made legislative headway with initiatives such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Many leaders from within the African American community and beyond rose to prominence during the Civil Rights era, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Andrew Goodman and others. They risked—and sometimes lost—their lives in the name of freedom and equality. Read more: http://www.history.com/topics/civil-rights-movement In the early 1960s, the fundamental prize sought by the civil rights movement was something that African Americans had never known: full legal equality. When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, African Americans throughout much of the South were denied the right to vote, barred from public facilities, subjected to insults and violence, and could not expect justice from the courts. In the North, black Americans also faced discrimination in housing, employment, education, and many other areas. But the civil rights movement had made important progress, and change was on the way. Progress and Protests: 1954-1960 In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Educationthat racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Many southern political leaders claimed the desegregation decision violated the rights of states to manage their systems of public education, and they responded with defiance, legal challenges, delays, or token compliance. As a result, school desegregation proceeded very slowly. By the end of the 1950s, less than 10 percent of black children in the South were attending integrated schools. Read more: http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/Civil-Rights-Movement.aspx Civil Rights Movement: An Overview A look at the largest social movement of the 20th century, including the Brown decision, the challenge to social segregation, voting rights, black power, and the movements legacy The civil rights movement can be defined as a mass popular movement to secure for African Americans equal access to and opportunities for the basic privileges and rights of U.S. citizenship. Although the roots of the civil rights movement go back to the 19th century, the movement peaked in the 1950s and 1960s. African American men and women, along with whites, organized and led the movement at national and local levels. They pursued their goals through legal means, negotiations, petitions, and nonviolent protest demonstrations. The largest social movement of the 20th century, the civil rights movement influenced the modern women's rights movement and the student movement of the 1960s. The civil rights movement centered on the American South, where the African American population was concentrated and where racial inequality in education, economic opportunity, and the political and legal processes was most blatant. Beginning in the late 19th century, state and local governments passed segregation laws, known as Jim Crow laws, and mandated restrictions on voting qualifications that left the black population economically and politically powerless. The movement therefore addressed primarily three areas of discrimination: education, social segregation, and voting rights. Read more: http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/civil-rights-movement-0 = = = = = = =Timeline of the Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1964= From Lisa Vox, former About.com Guide A crowd of white and black Americans gathers at the Lincoln Memorial for the March on Washington in August of 1963. The paper reads, "They're Pouring In From All Over." Source: Library of Congress (digital id: ppmsca 03129) See More About · civil rights movement · freedom rides · civil rights act · martin luther king While the non-violent movement for civil rights started in the1950s, it was during the early sixties that non-violent techniques began to pay off. Civil rights activists and students across the South challenged segregation, and the relatively new technology of television allowed Americans to witness the often brutal response to these protests. By 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson was able to push through the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964. This timeline of the early 1960s Civil Rights Movement reveals just what an impressive number of historic events happened between 1960 and 1964. 1960 · On February 1, four young African-American men, students at North Carolina Agriculture and Technical College, go to a Woolworth in Greensboro, North Carolina, and sit down at a whites-only lunch counter. They order coffee. Despite being denied service, they sit silently and politely at the lunch counter until closing time. Their action marks the start of theGreensboro sit-ins, which sparks similar protests all over the South. · On April 15, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee holds its f Read more: http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/civilrightsstruggle1/a/timeline1960.htm = = = = = = = = =African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–68)= From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "American Civil Rights Movement" redirects here. For the earlier period, see African-American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954). Prominent figures of the African-American Civil Rights Movement. Clockwise from top left:W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks,Martin Luther King, Jr. The African-American Civil Rights Movement were social movements in the United States aimed at outlawing racial discriminationagainst black Americans and restoring voting rights to them. This article covers the phase of the movement between 1955 and 1968, particularly in the South. The wave of inner city riots from 1964 through 1970 undercut support from the white community. The emergence of the Black Power Movement, which lasted from about 1966 to 1975, challenged the established black leadership for its cooperative attitude and its nonviolence, and instead demanded political and economic self-sufficiency. The movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans. Forms of protest and/or civil disobedience included boycotts such as the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–56) in Alabama; "sit-ins" such as the influential Greensboro sit-ins (1960) in North Carolina; marches, such as the Selma to Montgomery marches (1965) in Alabama; and a wide range of other nonviolent activities. Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1955%E2%80%9368)